Leap and the Net Will Appear

May 31, 2018

Rev. Sian Wiltshire

“Leap and the net will appear.” ~ John Burroughs, American naturalist and nature essayist.

Recently my best friend made a huge leap of faith. She left her career of 30 years, as it was just too stressful and harming her health. For someone like her, this lack of security, assurance and sense of foundation, was extremely difficult. Every day she deals with constant questions, “What’s next? What do I do? Who am I? How will my spouse and I be financially? Did I make the right decision?”

I’ve been listening as best I can. But I know something she doesn’t. You see, I’ve done these leaps twice before, and while they are never easy, I know the terrain. I know what will happen: She’ll figure it out. She’ll make one decision, then another, and then another. And she’ll get where ever she needs to be. Spirit taught me an important lesson long ago: “Faith is not about knowing that something will happen; faith is putting one foot in front of the other withoutknowing what will happen.” Faith is something you have in yourself and it brings with it all kinds of surprises, challenges and ultimately joys.

This church is about to take a leap of faith to do a capital campaign and build a sanctuary. There are lots of questions: “How much will it cost? How can we afford it? What will it look like? What will we need to change?” I don’t know that we have all the answers yet, but I have faith. I have faith like I have faith in my best friend. That she and this smart, savvy, concerned congregation will put one foot in front of the other and we’ll make one decision and then another and another. And eventually we’ll get where we need to go.